The mainstream media should ask for their money back. They came to an event at Trump International Hotel in Washington to hear the GOP nominee enlarge on the “birther” controversy. Trump did — for all of 27 seconds. Then he turned his attention to main purpose of the widely covered event, which was to pay homage to the Medal of Honor recipients who had come to see him.
Trump’s comments on the birther issue were short and sweet. He said:
Hillary Clinton and her campaign of 2008 started the ‘Birther’ controversy. I finished it. I finished it – you know what I mean. President Barack Obama was born in the United States, period. Now we want to get back to making America strong and great again. Thank you.
The reference to Clinton’s having started the controversry harks back to a comment she made and a photo her campaign quietly sent to Matt Drudge, both during her 2008 White House run. The comment came during an invterview she granted to “60 Minutes” in which she stated her belief that Barack Obama was not a Muslim, but then coyly added the qualifier “as far as I know.” Here’s the video:
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
The picture, which follows, was taken in 2006 and shows Obama in tribal Kenyan gear:
But back to the media and Trump — or perhaps more precisely the media being trumped. After 29-plus minutes of love for — and from — the Medal of Honor winners, there was no way the MSM was going to get the negative story it had come to cover. Which was the response Team Trump had deftly engineered.
CNN’s Jeremy Diamond tweeted out:
Trump’s campaign hyped up change on birther issue. And now that TV networks carrying it live, we’ve had 20 mins of veterans endorsing Trump
— Jeremy Diamond (@JDiamond1) September 16, 2016
Matt Viser, the Boston Globe’s deputy Washington bureau chief, quoted CNN’s John King in a tweet of his own:
“We got played, again, by the Trump campaign.” — John King just now on CNN.
— Matt Viser (@mviser) September 16, 2016
Politico’s Glenn Kessler had this to say:
18 months into this cable networks are still letting Trump hijack them for free airtime — ad time — by promising a “major announcement’
— Glenn Thrush (@GlennThrush) September 16, 2016
Finally, here’s media veteran Jim Roberts:
Once again, the American news media gets totally played by Trump. Wall-to-wall coverage. We’re all guilty.
— Jim Roberts (@nycjim) September 16, 2016
That about sums up nicely.
As to candidate Trump: Well played, sir!
(h/t Adan Salazar)
